I Guess It Was Inevitable…. Grumpy Cat Gets A Movie Deal

Deadline are reporting that Grumpy Cat (real name Tardar Sauce), the cranky-faced cat voted Meme of the Year Award at the 2013 Webby Awards, has a shot at getting her famous sourpuss on the big screen, as Broken Road’s Todd Garner and Sean Robins, and Grumpy Cat’s reps (manager Ben Lashes and rep Al Hassas… yes, a cat has a manager and a “rep”) have teamed up to “produce and assemble a package for a Garfield-like feature film with the now famous frowning feline at the center. In the film, Grumpy Cat will be given the power of speech.”

Grumpy Cat’s popularity originated from a picture posted to Reddit by the brother of her owner Tabatha Bundesen on September 22th, 2012. Alongside winning a Webby, Grumpy Cat was named the most influential cat of 2012 by MSNBC (face, meet palm), a most important Meme of 2012 by Mashable, and she has appeared in various news and TV shows including the likes of The Today Show, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Live, VH1 Morning Buzz, The Soup, CBS Evening News, TMZ and USA Today. The official Grumpy Cat Facebook page has over 930,000 likes and the official YouTube Channel has over 120,000 subscribers and over 20 million views.

Broken Road’s Todd Garner also recently optioned the story and life rights of a bunch of adult men who hold a cross-country game of tag. That project is now reportedly a priority at New Line, with Mark Steilen writing and Will Ferrell and Jack Black attached to play two of the main characters. “This started off as a picture of a cat, but rare is an image that evokes that much comedy,” Garner said on the topic of a Grump Cat movie. “You read all of the memes and the comments, and one is funnier than the next. We think we can build a big family comedy around this character.” Expect more news about this project soon.